In her current exhibition 21st Cent EVA – in her skin, Eva Petrič presents herself with a selection of photos and a video, created in the last eleven years, whereby most of them are being exhibited for the first time. In its content, the exhibition raises the question of women’s emancipation: The latter affects women on two levels: on the broader social level, manifested as the heritage of the struggle for equal treatment for women, and on the subjective level, where equality, equilibrium and freedom won, negotiated or taken by every woman on her own or in her relationship with men. Both views mark the modern social aspect of the modern woman: the external aspect, built on cultural-sociologic, psychologic, economic research on one hand; and on the other hand the public image of the woman influenced by the stereotypes of the current fashion taste and aesthetic demands. And what is it like to be a modern woman? What is her outlook, her sense of the position and role dictated by contemporary society? The artist approaches this question in light of personal reflection on emancipation and the consequence of women’s entrapment in social norms and concepts. In content, the pain is mirrored as the basic tone, written into the matrix of woman’s nature and the special role she is playing or is forced to play. The title of the exhibition refers to the biblical Eve, anchored in the cultural-religious viewpoint of the western world, we could say about her that she had everything, including freedom and equal position in relation to man, but due to wanting more she had lost all of this and was punished by being subordinated to man and doomed to suffering. Following her, the whole female sex was condemned to suffering, striving for centuries to regain what the first woman was deprived of. Petrič presents us the Eve of the 21st century as the

personification of the modern woman, still unable to free herself completely from the restricting concepts and determining roles imposed by the society, still throwing a dark shadow over the emancipation. The Eve of the 21st century is a real woman, intellectually and emotionally awake, and not the artificial constructed type that is being imposed on her; fighting against the latter and rejecting the image of a doll and passive figure, not wanting to play according to man’s rules anymore, but instead be a woman, as is written in her nature. And the recognition of woman as equal to man in her difference from him is the essence of emancipation; otherwise, the goal is not reached. Petrič is dealing with a theme that exceeds the present time frame and in its universal meaningfulness unites not only women of the modern time, but of any age.

A heart-breaking image of the woman’s cry on the colour photo Crown of Thorns introduces the exposition. The cry, escaped from the woman`s wide-open mouth, placed behind different screens, as patterned glass door, frozen pane, water surface or in the

presented case behind the surface, covered with drops, is one of the recognisable motifs in her opus. The primary expression of wo- man’s pain, in art history most emotionally interpreted by dramatic scenes of baroque paintings and sculptures as the cry of desperate mothers at the Massacre of the Innocents (Guido Reni) or the powerless Nymph Daphne running away from the passionate Apollo (Gianlorenzo Bernini), is interpreted in Petrič’s work as imprisonment. In the woman’s figure, cutting in an aching thrust diagonally into the composition, as if being caught in the middle of a panic runaway by the camera, we feel the pain entering the viewer’s space and defining the basic tone of this exhibition. The pain is additionally accented by sticks, stabbed into the mouth and into the neck, alluding to the crown of thorns. As the tortured, repelled animal, doomed to pain if she talks, but even more if she does not, robbed of her real face, covered by a mask, she is the image of suffering, a woman, prisoner of false cognitions and expectations imposed by the outer world, hiding from the latter. No exit, no optimism is sensed; on the contrary: the drops on the surface additionally contribute to the impression that the figure, gasping for air, is drowning and the dark wave soon to cover her, magnifying the anxious impression of hopelessness.

The second part of the exhibition, with black-and-white photographs and a colour video selected by the author, presents the motif of the shadow or reflection, characteristic for Petrič’s opus. The shadow is the metaphor for the woman silenced by others or retreating into silence. Eva’s game deals with the motif of the modern woman, reflecting the first woman in her genetic code and, as such, playing the sweet game of seduction, symbolised by the apple. The cross-shaped composition symbolises the cross a woman bears when she is following external and internal imperatives about her mission and role, burdening herself with her own image or the fact that she must be emancipated and surpass the man. The presentation can also be interpreted in a lighter tone as the innocent play of the woman, extending an invitation to the joys of life without prejudices, as the counterweight to all stereotypes attributed to the biblical Eve and consequently to the (modern) woman. The meaning of the apple, presenting temptation in the stylised colour shot and at the same time a material contrast to the non-tangible world of shadows, preponderates to the positive temptation as the promise of something sweet; it is the invitation to life, shining in intense colours. In other works, we sense a more moderate tone, gaining the impression that the game is lost. The modern Eve is, just as the biblical one, expelled from what was originally shared and cannot correct what defines her after her banishment into the outer world. Too many times she is seen as an object (of lust) or a trophy, represented by the Tropheada, a shadow projection of the female body in a seductive pose on the surface with attached labels saying trophy, acting as a projection of men’s wishes or social stereotypes. Or, she can be pushed into a corner, encompassed on photos from the cycles Fresco, Street Dog and Into the Corner, Out of the Corner, where the content is enhanced by the corner setup. On the first photograph we again meet with the dramatic cry, on the second the decisively stretched forefinger as a Michelangelo-like citation brings hope of awakening the resigned woman’s image withdrawn into the shadow. The toothed pattern is reminiscent of thorns and connects the works with the Crown of Thorns. In the video One Size Fits All, on the example of the statue of the Greek goddess of beauty, on which she projects her own shadow in grotesquely stretched proportions and fractures of the body, Petrič raises the question of imposed, artificially constructed beauty ideals that instil in woman the impression that she is not (sufficiently) beautiful. When women adapt to beauty ideals, a paradox may emerge: for the price of the beauty shining from their unique personality and given to them as a gift, they become uniform, even boring dolls, far removed from the spark of life. The Shadow of the Shadow, the largest work of this part of the exhibition, through its

installation around the corner dynamically directs the viewer’s eye towards a gradual assembly of the whole and attracts viewer’s

interest because of conspicuous content.The subtle image of a woman with wings, pensive in silent self-reflection, is presented in a mirrored reflection. It is designed in a way in which the central part of the composition is occupied by the wings, accenting liberation and exit from the constriction, and at the same time symbolising the transformation of the woman into an etheric being; as if

emancipation is completely realised and possible only in the metaphysical sphere of living.

The colour photographic diptych Crown of Chopsticks, replaying the motif of the woman as victim and rebel, represents the antipode to the Crown of Thorns: finally, the mask falls, the victim shows her changed face, fully focused, ready to fight.

With works from the series Hematoma, we enter the kaleidoscopically colourful third exhibition part. The colour photographs in lit frames whose format is filled by the principle of the horror vacui, were created by the overlaying of colour photos of a woman in close view or in broader areal cut with photos of lace and their shadows. The series, named after hypodermic bleeding due to outer pressures, illuminates the danger of denying the exertion of pressure on the woman, so the emancipation is of vital importance to her. The lace net, which is otherwise an excellent product of arts and crafts that we view with pleasure, represents the entrapment of the woman. Simultaneously, it is read as the metaphor of the fragile beauty of the woman’s nature, which is, according to the artist, entrapped in her own skin, not able to escape from it. Entrapped in the nets of social patterns, mutual relationships, own feelings, thoughts, desires and suffering, she emerges in the role of active subject (as a seducer, thinking subject), and of passive subject at other times. In some cases, we can sense the connection to fashion photography, but the aestheticized image reflects pain, as a row of false images stick to it, being imposed by the fashion industry. In the series, as an example, the questions of seduction as the woman’s weapon, or of

suffering in love as represented by the woman with the extracted heart in the centre of the O’Keefean desert, are exposed, and the whole is rounded up by the desire for liberation with the bird spreading its wings.

The work of Eva Petrič is marked by extraordinary expressive power, arising from introspection and intuitive discovery of contents, the need for creation leading the artist to astonishing results. She uses her body as the medium of creative expression; in this, we can rank her alongside strongly expressional authors such as Francesca Woodman and Cindy Sherman in the field of

photography. Through her body, she gives women the right of word; she wants them to be considered, valued, unburdened of unreal expectations and demands and accepted as they are – in their own skin. Or, if we paraphrase the artist’s quote, the Eve of the 21st century exceeds the imperatives of fashion and public opinion and dares to live her own life in tune with her own heartbeat and in awareness of her preciousness.

Mag. Andreja Rakovec

Eva Petrič, born in 1983 in Slovenia, works in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in Vienna, Austria, and in New York, USA, creating photography, video, installations, performance and literature. She graduated in 2005 in psychology and visual art at the Webster University in Vienna and defended her Master’s thesis in 2010 in new media at the Transart Institute Berlin/Danube University Krems.

In the last year, she added to her numerous awards (Award Čižek for Naj-digič 2006, Ljubljana; in selection of Slovenian art critics in February of 2008; Artist of the month of Art Lab, Vienna, June 2008; Scholarship of the Swiss Foundation Vordemberge-Gildewart in 2010; KH Pfann Ohmann Preis, Vienna 2011; K3 International short film festival Ljubljana 2012; finalist ID-Consoni public intervention Sondika 2012, Spain; in Selection of BIAB biennale 2012 and 2015, Peking; 2013 Hong Kong Art Walk; 2011 IPCNY; Display of the century ACF New York, 2015; in Selection of Eligius Schmuckpreis 2016, Austria; the award Kunstlitfasssaulen, Salzburg, 2016; award of 5. Art-Festival Kranj 2016; silver medal for photography SNBA 2016) also the Grand Prix of the 6th International Festival of Visual Arts in Kranj, the Best Performance Art Award at the United Solo Festival in New York and the Red-Carpet Tribute Art Award 2017 in Vienna.

Her works were exhibited in more than 40 individual and over 60 group exhibitions in Slovenia, Argentina, Austria, Denmark, Philippines, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Macedonia, Mexico, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Turkey and the USA.

A week ago, in New York, her individual photographic exhibition An Echo… A Stain at the Gallery Mourlot ended, with Eva Petrič enlisted to the gallery’s artists.